Opera, like all popular web browsers, contains features that sacrifice privacy for convenience. Opera contains some features that send every website you visit to its servers, but also offers excellent, fine-grained control of cookies.

One notable omission from Opera is the “do-not-track” feature found in Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari. In Opera’s defense, most websites ignore the do-not-track request and track you anyway.

This can help a lot on slower connections, but it’s unnecessary on fast connections. You can disable Opera Turbo to prevent your browsing activity from going through Opera’s servers.

First, open Opera’s Preferences window under Settings in the Opera menu.

Click over to the Webpages tab and you’ll see the Opera Turbo settings near the top of the window.

You can select Off from the drop-down menu or click Details to see more information.

Search Suggestions

Like other browsers, Opera sends each keystroke you type into the search box to your default search engine. The search engine responds with suggestions based on what you’re typing.

This only transmits queries you type into the search box — which you’ll probably send to your default search engine anyway — but you can disable this feature by unchecking the Enable Search Suggestions check box on the Search tab.

Cookies

Cookies are often used by advertisers to track you online, but websites also use cookies for legitimate purposes, such as saving your login state and website preferences.

Click over to the Advanced tab and click Cookies in the sidebar to view your cookie settings. Select the “Accept Cookies Only From the Site I Visit” option to reject third-party cookies, which are often used by advertisers. Most websites will work properly if you select this option, but you can change it back to “Accept Cookies” if you encounter a problem.

The “Delete New Cookies When Exiting Opera” check box allows you to keep cookies enabled so websits will work properly, but discards them each time you exit Opera so you can’t be tracked. The downside is that you’ll have to log back in to each website you use when you open Opera — unless you use the Manage Cookies dialog to save these cookies between browser sessions.

If you want to enable this option, you should also click Manage Cookies and clear away the cookies you don’t need. Any cookies already in here will be preserved, so you can save your How-To Geek cookies if you want to stay logged into How-To Geek.

Fraud and Malware Protection

Opera’s Fraud and Malware Protection feature, enabled by default, helps protect you online by displaying a warning message when you access a fraudulent website or one that contains malware.

To provide this feature, Opera sends the domain name of each website you visit to Opera’s servers. Opera promises that this data is anatomized and they don’t use it to track you. Other popular web browsers compare most websites you visit against a local list of known-bad websites, so Opera’s architecture isn’t ideal for privacy.

This feature does help protect you, but you can disable it if you’re not comfortable with Opera transmitting this information. Just uncheck the “Enable Fraud and Malware Protection” check box on the Security pane.

Private Browsing

Opera’s private-browsing feature prevents Opera from saving your browsing history, cookies and other private information locally. You can open a tab in private-browsing mode by clicking the Opera menu, pointing to Tabs and Windows and selecting New Private Tab. Unfortunately, you can’t set Opera to always open tabs in this mode.

Chris Hoffman is a technology writer and all-around computer geek. He's as at home using the Linux terminal as he is digging into the Windows registry.
Connect with him on Google+.

Did You Know

Although you may not know the name William A. Mitchell offhand, there’s a good chance you’ve come across things invented by the prolific food chemist. Over the course of his career, he was awarded over 70 patents and is responsible for notable consumable products like Pop Rocks, Tang, Cool Whip, quick-set Jell-O, and powdered egg whites.